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Forum:Trivia, a modest proposal
I posit that the single greatest cause of edit wars in the Borderland Wikia was weapons' trivia entries. Aries being the canonical example. Since trivia entries are almost never confirmable with complete certainty, I propose that for BL2, we have a sanctioned "Trivia" subheading at the top of each Legendary's talk page. That way, every idiot can get their say in, with no single right or wrong answer sanctioned, and the page itself can remain relatively calm and factual. Note that I don't want to remove Trivia. I merely want to move it to a location where debate can play out. Dämmerung 22:07, August 2, 2012 (UTC) wont work. even if you add DO NOT ADD TRIVIA!. they will add. with the blog format being more prevalent in the new(er) wikis, the knee jerk urgency to get it on the front page is not satisfied by time spent in talk page as it requires an extra click. its all or nothing and all already won. that said if this thread gets enough support it will be done. 00:52, August 3, 2012 (UTC) This is partly why I brought up the idea of appealing to Central for a wiki-wide throttle on unregistered contributors. Plus the deletion spree I've just been indulging in, which gives me ample reminders of all the evils that the UCs brought upon us in 2009: Article names based on rumours of conceptual content, categories generated by using red links to simulate flavour text, and other bone-headed additions. The deluge won't just present us with the lowest common denominator - it will produce edits of such stupidity that even the worst of mad scientists would be amazed by how truly epic they are. As such, asking someone to take their trivia to a talk page will be as about as effective as using a piece of tissue to block a fire hose from blasting human diarrhoea at your face... which incidentally is an apt metaphor for what we'll be dealing with soon. -- WarBlade (talk) 01:12, August 3, 2012 (UTC) might want to clean your house a bit in case of fire. UCs are consistently the best source of proof readers on this wiki. even if 1/4 of them dont know the english language is not from broklyn ny. i, and only i, would rather take the time to correct and/or block 5 dolts than keep one good editor from contributing. let us also not downplay the number of RCs who insist upon their own version(s) of trivia. and, once again, (yes, im playing that card again) all trivia on borderlands is a concession to warblade so ive given him final say on each instance. so lets not go reverting any of warblade's edits to trivia shall we not kids? 01:26, August 3, 2012 (UTC) I was not here for the deluge at the beginning, so I am not sure what exactly to expect for BL 2. While im sure a great many reverts will be necessary during the process of creating the new pages, i see no reason to limit anyones ability to edit. I myself have been reverted or corrected while making good faith edits.It is up to those of us that care about the wiki and its content to make sure that any info added is correct and/ or confirmed in some way. It will most likely be a lot of work, but i am committed to doing what i, can when i can. If that means reading a bunch of @#$%&* and correcting it then so be it. -- 02:42, August 3, 2012 (UTC) (Damn it, lost my first comment. Damn central for breaking monobook.) Please see User:Daemmerung/bl2-trivia-proposal for an example of what I am imagining. All we can do is channel the inanity (a commodity on which UCs certainly do not have a monopoly). We aleady have a "no speculation in mainspace" rule. If we extend that to embrace trivia, 99.44% of which is indeed speculation, then we can get out of the business of declaring what constitutes a valid versus invalid trivia reference. Dämmerung 02:56, August 3, 2012 (UTC) : As Dr. F stated, it wont work. We already have similar notes for topics like Strategies on pages, directing people to post on the Strategy page. The Notes are often ignored and people post in the noted section anyway. So we wind up just "fixing " it. Im thinking the way we handle it now is the best way to do it without creating even more work for ourselves. -- 03:12, August 3, 2012 (UTC) ::Could you point me to an example on-wiki of what you mean? The notes? Part of the problem, I believe, is that we don't have those notes in places that users can find them. Certainly what I propose won't eliminate the on-page noise problem, but it will reduce it. And relocating an erroneously placed speculation is still easier than remaining in the business of valid trivia arbiter. Dämmerung 03:17, August 3, 2012 (UTC) ::Essentially, I want to reduce the probability of future Aries firefights. Dämmerung 03:18, August 3, 2012 (UTC) ::: Pages such as You. Will. Die. have notes with links to a separate page. Some people dont feel like making the extra click and just leave it in the noted section for someone else to take care of. IMO, Even if the extra page is there, the problem/ "Wars" will not go away and the extra page is just an extra place to have to keep track of for cleaning. -- 03:33, August 3, 2012 (UTC) PS: Most of The Aries issues have centered around the spelling of it, which may or may not have been a developer misspelling. Your idea is a good one in theory, but i dont think it works as well in practice. At least, not around here. -- 03:41, August 3, 2012 (UTC) God damn it, Wikia just ate my entry again. Fuck this thing. Try again tomorrow. Good night, y'all. Dämmerung 03:49, August 3, 2012 (UTC) as i said on User_talk:Daemmerung/bl2-trivia-proposal#blah_blah it looks great. passing the resolution & retrofitting all articles in 30 days is asking quite a lot tho. 04:22, August 3, 2012 (UTC) I'm sorry, but I don't really like it: #Trivia is relevant to the pages at hand, and as such, do belong on the page. Imo, a few edit wars here and there does not warrant their demotion to talk. #Edit wars is a fact of life, and you'll never be able to get rid of it. I don't think it is that big of a deal anyways... Plus a few well placed (semi)protections takes care of it. ##Only contributors visit talk. Readers will miss out on fun and relevant information. #Talk pages are meant for stacking discussion, not editing. You are not supposed to remove other editor's contributions in talk. We either break that rule, or have a trivia section which is destined to eternal bloat. ##Further more, given the talk page's nature of "say anything that is on your mind, it's OK", you are really just opening yourself up to even more edit wars... Regarding UC's, I agree with Dr.F's stance. Further more, every RC starts out as an UC. Block of the UC, and you'll miss out on RCs. happypal (talk • ) 08:59, August 3, 2012 (UTC) Exactly. The one place that shouldn't be used for a mainspace content shift is the talk page. If we ever feel the need to do that (gun "examples are on the talk page" ohffswhyyyy???) then the next best thing is in a standardised sub page. The more I think about it though, the more I reach the conclusion that trivia should stay visible in the mainspace where it belongs. -- WarBlade (talk) 10:36, August 3, 2012 (UTC) You had to go there! (laugh) I'd be perfectly happy if we got rid of gun examples, too. The mix/max/etc stats should be mechanics-based. (Why are the Variants on talk pages, anyway?) For a more recent example, look at the back and forth on Pitchfork. We know exactly nothing about the weapon, but that still didn't stop everybody from bikeshedding furiously as to what it might mean. Putting Trivia on the main page invites just this sort of drive-by bikeshedding of the "oh, I know too, I know" variety. To be blunt, the Trivia sections are an irresistible magnet for idiots, and the marginally relevant items that said users post therein, while possibly entertaining to some, diminishes the credibility of the entire wiki. How is the fascinating fact that Japanese Comic Whatever had a bishi villain named "Chimera" (only slightly exaggerating) pertinent to the in-game use of the weapon? We could add a link to lmgtfy.com?q= to each page and get better results. Or some sort of automated fact-o-tron to inform our lucky readers that: The Pygmy Marmoset is the worlds smallest mammal!! The Amazon is the world's longest river!! Pious Moslems are forbidden to eat glass!!! and whatever other entertaining fact of the day we elect to append. At least those wouldn't be speculation.... wipes foam from mouth I am absolutely not proposing that we start to edit Talk pages (unless someone can convince the seemingly AWOL Fry to do it - it's okay, he doesn't feel pain like real people do). I am hoping for us to do less work, not more. Dreaming of a structure that reduces friction by inviting multiple Trivia theories to co-exist, gets us out of the gatekeeper/arbiter role, and most importantly leaves the wiki main page factual. The downside would be, yes, Talk#Trivia would succumb to bloat. I believe that a bloated Trivia section would be little worse than what we have today, and would continue to support the Talk section's mission of being a sacrificial anode for the page. You. Will. Die. has different problems. A "See also" template is not an effective way to tell persons to edit elsewhere. And for some reason, here we want the strategies on the boss page, whereas most boss pages want the strategies on the mission page. Too, when I review the page's history, half the changes are to Trivia. Dämmerung 16:42, August 3, 2012 (UTC) :You cannot just block all unregistered contributors. Wikia quite simply does not work that way. Any appeal to Wikia for a wiki-wide block is going to fail, WarBlade. Lock articles that are persistent targets, temp-block persistent vandals after warnings, move on. That's how wikis work. :UCs do visit talk pages sometimes. For trivia, the best option is merge trivia into other sections of the article. Trivia is not discouraged - Trivia sections are. In cases like the Chimera, you could add "Etymology" or "Name origin" section, with (properly formatted) text describing where the name could have come from. Cheesedude (talk) 18:06, August 3, 2012 (UTC) You can lock out unregistered IPs actually. There are a few wikis around that do exactly that (incl. on Wikia), and I have to say the reduced vandalism is magic to behold. Anyway, the idea doesn't resonate with people here, so I haven't bothered pressing the point - just saying it happens, and it's a very effective solution to a quality control problem on some wikis. As for trivia merges, I disagree. That would erode the value of the quality additions with all the dilution. I had an idea last night that I might throw into an experimental form tomorrow though... -- WarBlade (talk) 20:51, August 3, 2012 (UTC) :I'll admit I wasn't aware that Wikia ever allowed that. Sure, but there's also reduced legitimate contributions. Maybe this wiki has more vandals than most, I don't know. But on every wiki I've contributed too, the number of good IP edits exceed the bad. :I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. You're saying it wouldn't be as valued because its merged with the rest of the prose? Having it incorporated into other sections make it looks far more professional and encyclopedic in most cases. As Daemmerung said above, trivia sections are magnets for unhelpful (albeit not deliberately unhelpful) contributions. Nuking the sections but maintaining the content of them can work. I would know, I've seen it done successfully on other wikis. Am I saying its the only option? Certainly not, and I'm interested to see what your own idea is. Cheesedude (talk) 23:02, August 3, 2012 (UTC) in my, not so humble opinion, the requisite link keeps most bullshit trivia edits out. and if someone is going to take the time to provide the link, im satisfied, if not happy. i, for one, dont mind commenting out trivia w/o links. if someone has an unhealthy attachment to a particular trivium (Aries) they can warm the bench fora bit. to sum up this was the best solution i could come up w/. if the community decides on something different (or "better") it shall be so. the variant models is an artifact of the original wiki design. as is max/mins. no one, and i mean no one knew how gearbot worked b4 game was released. so to collect data the chart was made. fun facts from Dr. F. 00:29, August 4, 2012 (UTC) : For that matter, we don't know now how BL2 will work, either. But the charts/tables have left us with an awkward legacy. Be nice if a better solution were to suggest itself. Dämmerung 00:42, August 4, 2012 (UTC)